Christopher Mahan wrote:
On Usenet or any of many online forums, trolls can be ignored (not fed) and they mostly disappear.
That is not my experience with unmoderated Usenet forums. Typically, over a period of time, unmoderated forums degenerate as good people lose patience and people who love to fight come to increasingly dominate the conversation. "Pure" trolls, i.e. people who come to a forum and say outrageous things as a prank do tend to go away, but that's about it.
Even this forum, which is generally very civilized, is kept so because of the constant possibility of getting kicked off, which has in fact happened a few times.
Nonetheless, I do agree completely with this:
Ignoring a troll on wikipedia is the worst thing you could possibly do, since it will bite you in the proverbial bum.
--Jimbo